Writer’s Block – An Urban Tale || Priyanka

A blank screen with three words at the upper left corner: Due at 11:59:59 PM.

A look at the time and Sara wipes her brow once again and lets out a sigh, which immediately freezes in the cold Brooklyn loft she shared with four other “wannabes”. 20 more minutes.

What to write?

The editor seemed really pleased with her portfolio. But then who wouldn’t be?

It was the perfect world in there: a series of stories on a Southern Belle who grew up on a sun-kissed ranch, went out on pony-rides alone since she was 6 and fell in love with the neighborhood’s most promising gentleman at 10. Thanksgiving dinners with a table for 40 and glittering Balls where she waltzed away with her Prince Charming till the moon went down.

She could write more of the same stuff… but her editor wanted something, what did she say? ... something.. “Un-Disney”.

She could write about being born without a father’s name, about a little girl waiting at the playground for her turn to ride the swing... a 10 yr old trying to make out the letters of her mother’s name in the ER where she was dying of being poor and cold and homeless. She might mention the poor orphan being sent to a school where she found more broken dolls like her, all broken beyond repair… how she learnt to find her way through the heartless world where no one was looking out for her. She could possibly also do something on a teenaged girl being pushed into drugs by a friend.. the nights full of colors floating around her... and her downward spiral from there to the day she sold off one of her kidneys to get high and.. to forget the pain.

No, but they would be too dark for a magazine audience. Something more inspirational maybe…

How about putting a turn on these grim storylines, yeah, that’s what they are.. uh-huh.. STORYLINES..!

The Southern Belle again.. she’s loses her father in a war and is heartbroken. Her family breaks up over property and she and her mother are homeless, roaming the streets of a big, bad city. The mother gets a job at a book shop and the girl gets into a school… she learns to read and write and becomes very learned till one day, she joins her own father’s company. And as she struggles to regain the lost empire, her mother dies a cold, lonely death in an ER.. no! Why bring an ER here.. it does not make any sense!

The writing needs a hint of romance.. yeah.. the childhood friend who promised he’ll always wait for her.. he joins her in the war against the evil cousins! And finally the day dawns when she returns to her family mansion and restores all the former glory to her mother, and lives happily ever after…

Another peek at the wrist watch with the broken strap and a shiver runs down her spine."3 more minutes. And I’m back on Disney-ness.. ugh!! I’ll never get this job… Let me turn in whatever @#$% I wrote.”

A week later, a package arrives at the doorstep of the run-down loft in downtown Brooklyn addressed to “Ms. Sara” .. it contained her letter of appointment as the columnist for Femme, a leading women’s magazine in the state and a cheque too.

Sara, needless to say was relieved. She could finally pay the rent for a better place and get away, not just mentally but also physically, from the druggies she had for room-mates.

She stepped out into the December snow, strangely feeling free of all the blocks she had in put up her mind. The blocks had been put up as a means to hold her past away from her present; but slowly over time, they began to take shape as her. They were the foundation for her future now... the building blocks.

She decided to go visit the father she never had at the mental asylum he was in. She stopped over at Joe’s for a turkey sandwich for him.. after all, Thanksgiving was only a few days past. 


"I do have a lot to be thankful for!", she said touching her lower abdomen.
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The writer claims she completed the story in less than 20 mins and was suffering from a bad case of Writer's Block aggravated by a bout of runny nose. Rotten tomatoes (or other vegetables), therefore, are to be saved for later. More of such irrelevant stuff at http://pri-amble.blogspot.com/

Posted in: Fiction,Priyanka,Short Story,Week 1